


it's gonna be forever

by whitemiists



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, bokuto is very precious, but very thirsty, for akaashi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-13
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2018-03-17 17:36:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3538184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitemiists/pseuds/whitemiists
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saw you there and I thought, ‘Oh, my god, look at that face. You look like my next mistake.’</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's gonna be forever

**Author's Note:**

> something i wrote for a friend on tumblr, now cross-posted here for an anon :)
> 
> the lyrics in the summary were the prompt i used for myself, because my friend is a big taylor swift fan, haha.
> 
> i'm hoping finally writing my first bokuaka will give me courage to write more!

Three years, and he was  _still_  the tallest player from the team. At least, he could pretend it was so as long as he made sure to always stay on the opposite end of the room from both Onaga and Washio. But that was just as good, he decided, because life was too short to get hung up on the technicalities.

Bokuto looked out at his former teammates and grinned broadly. This reunion was already off to a very good start.

"God, look at you," Komi said, wandering up to him and heartily clapping his shoulder. "Did you get even taller?"

"One centimeter," he boasted proudly, folding his arms for the effect. "I'm catching up to Kuroo little by little. He hasn't grown  _at all."_

Komi responded with what was half a head shake and half an eye roll, but he looked rather amused by their silly rivalry. But it was only "silly" to him because he'd never even been able to compete, something the team had always been quick to jump on when they'd all still been together.

"How  _is_  he, by the way?" he asked, throwing his hands behind his head. "How's college treating you?  _God,_  I remember how stressful that was for all of us. None of us thought you were gonna make it."

Bokuto waved away the playful quip without batting an eye, eagerly jumping into his tale of life after high school. "The team's  _amazing!"_  he exclaimed, throwing his arms into the air.  _"Wow,_  everyone's so  _good._  But I'm good, too, so that's okay."

"Still serving to the back of people's heads?" Komi snickered, dodging the swipe of his arm.

Bokuto rubbed his neck. "We've got Oikawa Tooru on our team, though, you know. So I hardly  _have_  to serve. Like, wow, he gets  _so many_  points just off his serve!" His face pinched a bit despite his enthusiasm, either from jealousy or from bitterness.

"So is he just like the magazines say?" Komi wondered, pressing his shoulder against the wall.

"He's just as good-looking." Bokuto shrugged, before his face perked up and he boomed, "Not as pretty as Akaashi was, though!"

"Stupid." His old teammate shoved him playfully, then glanced over his shoulder. "Don't let Akaashi hear you say that. You know he'll get all scary-quiet like he used to."

 _"What?"_  Bokuto squawked, bouncing on his heels. Cupping a hand over his eyes, he peered over Komi's shoulder and scanned the room. "Akaashi's  _here_  already? I didn't see him!"

"No, not yet. But you remember how he always had that way of showing up before you realized it. I bet that hasn't changed."

"Yeah, yeah, I bet it hasn't!" Bokuto chirped, his face lighting up. He was always excited to talk about Akaashi. "I bet his eyebrows still go all slanty when you mention how skinny he is." He placed his fingers over his own eyebrows, the ends meeting in the middle, as a visual. "I bet he still closes his eyes when he's frustrated and sighs like my mom does. Oooh, I bet he'll still try to pretend like he's not laughing at my cute owl puns!"

"Hmmm?" Komi raised a single eyebrow and was clearly suppressing a smirk, but he did not say anything.

Maybe he should have, because the look flew completely over Bokuto's head, who happily continued to chirp about how Akaashi's pale cheeks always turned an alarming shade of red in the cold and made him want to touch them  _so_   _badly._

.

Perhaps it was an hour later, when Komi had finally managed to escape from his ex-captain's endless chatter, when a commotion in the outside hallway drew Bokuto's attention. He searched for Washio, who had generously housed their reunion in his family's large, Japanese-style home, for an explanation for all the noise, but the need for one was met when Konoha cupped his hands around his mouth and told the room, "Akaashi's finally here."

Bokuto leapt up in an instant, his face brightening, his heart pumping fast, and joined the scramble for the front door. The others saw their old captain coming and willingly created a path for him — no one wanted to get bowled over by an overexcited, hundred-and-seventy-two pound college student — and that was how Bokuto found himself at the very front of the group that had gathered to welcome their old setter.

He ended up right next to Onaga, which was a little discouraging; he wanted to be the tallest one Akaashi saw in the crowd so maybe he would notice that Bokuto had actually grown in their time apart. But the thought was fleeting as he fumbled around the corner and a cool blast of air from the front door whisked past his face.

Akaashi was carefully closing the door behind him, and Bokuto's mouth ran dry as he took him in; same height, same skinny frame, same long eyelashes, same messy hair, same elegant fingers. He was wearing a pastel button-up, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and a loose tie hung around his neck. Slung over his arm he carried a discarded blazer.

Sweet  _sunshine_ , was he pretty.

Prettier than he'd been in high school. Prettier than Oikawa Tooru. Prettier than his mother even, though Bokuto dutifully apologized to his mother in his mind for ever having the thought.

Akaashi finally stepped into the house, his eyes trailing over the friendly faces of his ex-teammates all gathered and hastily calling out their greetings, before his gaze landed on Bokuto's awed grin.

He nodded. "Hello, everyone. It's nice to see you all again."

There were choruses of "Likewise!" and "No need to be so polite!" and amidst it all, Bokuto's voice was glaringly absent. If that wasn't shocking enough, the grin was still oddly fixed on his face. He felt someone nudge his back, but Akaashi had already seemed to realize he was acting unlike himself and stood before him.

"Hello, Bokuto-san." His voice was so bland and familiar, but there was a hint of curiosity in his tone as he wondered why his old captain was acting strange. "How have you been?"

He registered briefly through the haze in his mind that Akaashi had asked him a question. He should probably answer that. But it was hard to think clearly when he could count all of Akaashi's eyelashes from this close, or when he could smell the faint scent of his soap, or when he noticed his mouth still did that half-quirk at one end that he tried to pass off as a smile, or when he could see so clearly that he was pretty, so very,  _very_  pretty, and he was still waiting for an answer and Bokuto realized he was just standing there, not saying a word, and he had to say  _something, anything—_

"I'm gay now, did you know?" he blurted out, loud enough for his voice to carry.

There was silence in the hall. None of the boys seemed to know what to say at the unprompted declaration. Then Akaashi raised a single eyebrow, half-amused and half-confused, and there was a collective burst of laughter from the entire team.

"What a greeting!" Yamato snickered.

"Hey, Bokuto," Konoha drawled. "Why don't you get in front of the room and just make a big announcement? Save yourself the trouble of having to stand by the door to tell every person that walks in?"

Laughing themselves silly, the team shuffled back into the living room together, breaking off into various conversations. Bokuto cupped the back of his neck and grinned at Akaashi a little uselessly.

He didn't seem to mind. Hanging up his blazer on a nearby hook, he turned back to Bokuto and seemed to really take him in for a moment. "Bokuto-san, you've grown taller," he observed, slanting his head. "I'd say... a centimeter?"

A burst of warmth practically exploded in Bokuto's body in response, and if the ceiling wasn't low and he wouldn't have hit his head, he probably would have jumped for joy. "Yeah, yeah! Exactly!"

The setter closed his eyes and exhaled softly, perhaps because of his excessive enthusiasm that could tucker out anybody, and it seemed like things might go right back to the way they had been in high school. The thought left Bokuto feeling giddy and like he could float away.

But then Akaashi did this  _thing_  — Bokuto didn't even know what to call it, maybe because he was too floored to even think — where he dug his fingers into the bangs on his face and swept them off his forehead in a single swipe, slowly tucking them behind his ear and trailing his hand through the rest of his hair and down to cup his neck. He sighed lightly, blinking so quickly that his eyelashes fluttered.

Bokuto swallowed, and as he watched the setter quietly stalk past him and into the house, he realized he'd been on the cusp of making a  _very_  big mistake.

.

"Close your mouth," Yamato laughed, coming up behind him. "You're  _actually_  drooling."

"What do I  _do,_  Saru?" Bokuto moaned pitifully, dropping his head onto his friend's shoulder. "He's so,  _so_  pretty."

"Well, I  _wouldn't_  advise you to watch him creepily from the other end of the room all night," Yamato suggested, hiding an amused grin. He peered over Bokuto and looked at Akaashi himself. "Huh. I guess he  _is_ kinda pretty. You don't really notice this stuff until someone points it out to you."

"Akaashi's  _mine,"_  Bokuto wailed, pouting.

"Ah, that explains why you've been ignoring each other for the past hour."

His head shot up, eyes widening, and he grasped Yamato by his shoulders. "You're  _right!_ This won't do! I'm not getting anywhere!"

Yamato gently pried his arms off, before he could rattle his brains out, and urged him, "Well, then, go on."

Akaashi was in the middle of conversation with Onaga, though, and as much as he wanted to, he couldn't just go barreling in between and snatch the setter away. Instead, he plopped down on the couch and watched him with the intensity of an unblinking owl, though he was restless and nowhere near as still. The moment Akaashi turned away, his arms flew into the air.

"Akaashi!" he called, waving his hands over his head, then eagerly patted the empty spot next to him on the couch. "Come sit! Catch up with me!"

Akaashi obligingly shuffled over, and he didn't even sigh as he took the offered spot on the couch. Bokuto grinned at that.

"How have you really been, Bokuto-san?" he asked, folding his hands in his lap. Once again, Bokuto couldn't help noticing how long and elegant his fingers were. "We haven't seen each other since..."

 _"Two years,"_  Bokuto whined, holding up two fingers in his face for emphasis. "You didn't come to last year's reunion, so I haven't seen you since your graduation! Didn't you  _miss_ me?"

"I couldn't fly out in the middle of exam week," Akaashi huffed, his eyebrows doing the slanty thing Bokuto had been giggling to himself about only a couple of hours ago. Out of all the ex-Fukurodani volleyball team members, he'd been the one to choose the farthest university — a prestigious college that had accepted him for his top-notch grades — and while the team was of course happy for him, they missed their old setter, especially during times when their schedules clashed like they had at the last reunion.

"You didn't even call and check up on me or  _anything,"_ Bokuto accused, his bottom lip curling.

"It would have been pointless anyway." Akaashi half-rolled his eyes. Bokuto always forgot to charge his phone; it had been that way since high school, and he was right in presuming the bad habit had persisted onto college.

He laughed sheepishly. "Oh, yeah. I guess."

"How's Kuroo-san?" he wanted to know next, and apparently that was the right question to ask from someone who didn't much like participating in conversation. Then again, somehow Akaashi  _always_ knew the perfect things to say to him.

Bokuto eagerly launched into a recount of his college life, starting big with all the shenanigans he and Kuroo were always up to, and ending on a more subdued note about his volleyball team losing at nationals last year. Perhaps no one else could have been more excited about a loss than he was: "We got  _second place._ Aren't we  _amazing!"_

"I miss having you as my setter, though," he complained. "Oikawa loves tossing to his old friend, and it makes me remember how great  _we_ were together. We were  _fabowlous!"_

Akaashi scoffed lightly at his joke and turned away, and Bokuto's heart raced as he peeked at his face to check. Indeed, as he'd thought, Akaashi had pursed his lips in an attempt to smother a smile, and he could have cheered to the heavens right then and there.

"You're still making those awful jokes, are you, Bokuto-san?" Akaashi deadpanned, but he wasn't fooling anyone anymore. "We're not owls anymore."

"We'll always be owls in our  _hearts!"_ he declared, thumping his chest. "It's a special bond that can't be broken, don't you know? So me and you, Akaashi, we're always connected!"

He grinned, a dazzling smile that stretched across his face and could have cracked his cheeks, and though Akaashi turned away again, Bokuto could have  _sworn_ he didn't even  _try_ to hide his smile this time.

.

They couldn't sit on the couch the whole night, no matter how much Bokuto might have wanted to. They had other teammates to catch up with, most of whom wanted Akaashi to themselves too, after two years. He parted with the setter obligingly but very sulkily, and his eyes kept finding him through the night.

"You're  _so_ obvious," Konoha scoffed, shaking his head. "Do you realize that literally all of us have figured out about your little crush by now? I bet Akaashi has, too. I swear, Bokuto, you don't have a subtle bone in your body."

"You don't think Akaashi will be disgusted, do you?" was his only worry. He could have cared less if the rest of the team knew; they wouldn't judge him and they probably wouldn't even care.

"Akaashi's not like that," he said sternly, and Bokuto visibly relaxed, bobbing his head along in agreement. Then he saw a glimpse of Akaashi rubbing at his tired eyes and forgot to stop, and Konoha had to reach out to grab his chin and physically stop him. "You have it  _bad,"_ he noted, sounding surprised. "All this after a few hours?"

"I think I've  _always_ liked him..." Bokuto said carefully, thinking back to all those times he'd tripped during practice when Akaashi's shirt rode up as he tossed.

"You just didn't realize it until now, five years later." Konoha nodded curtly. "Yup, that sounds like you."

That led to a spontaneous bout of wrestling, though mostly it was just Bokuto laughing gleefully and declaring himself the king as Konoha snapped at him to stop mussing his hair and "get off me, stupid!" Sometime during, Bokuto glanced up to find that Akaashi had paused at the door and was being crowded by various members of the team.

"Hey, hey, what's happening?" he asked in concern, abruptly releasing Konoha, who almost collapsed from the sudden loss of force, and joining the crowd.

"Akaashi is leaving," Komi told him, and like Konoha had said, everyone  _must_ have known about his crush by now, because he also gave him a comforting pat on the back.

 _"Already?"_ He looked at Akaashi with sad, demanding eyes.

"My flight leaves early in the morning," he explained, shutting his eyes. "It was just unfortunate that we couldn't have this reunion some time earlier in the break." All their family schedules had clashed until today.

"I'll walk you out," Bokuto insisted, already maneuvering his way through his old teammates.

Akaashi frowned, glancing away. "There's no need—"

"A proper goodbye is important!" He was stubborn and wouldn't take no for an answer. Turning towards the rest of the team, he asked, "Does anyone else..."

Suddenly they all looked away, and he heard quick, mumbled excuses from the crowd: too cold, too crowded, wouldn't want to scare the neighbors, one representative was fine. Akaashi quirked an eyebrow but did not say anything, while Bokuto scratched his head and wondered why  _everyone_ was suddenly in a rush to help Washio clean up his place.

The night air was cool and pricked at his skin. "It's  _winter!"_ he exclaimed gleefully, punching his fists into the air. His breath came out as white fog and disappeared into the wind.

Akaashi, who had been responsible enough to adorn his blazer, sighed from behind him. "Bokuto-san, you'll catch a cold in just a T-shirt."

"Don't worry about me!" he proclaimed, jabbing a thumb at himself. "I'm  _always_ warm. Remember during the training camps when the guys would wait until I fell asleep and then use me like a heater for their cold hands?" He'd always been a little disappointed to learn that Akaashi never took part, and suddenly it made sense  _why._

Akaashi shook his head at the bizarre memories, then glanced down the street. "Still, it seems we could be out here longer than I thought. The taxi is running late."

"Then we can have a super long and  _ultra_ goodbye!" he beamed, even though the thought was a little sad. "Something to last the whole year!"

Akaashi said nothing at that, but his eyes were downcast as he rubbed his palms together and breathed on his frigid fingers, trying to warm them up in the cold.

The taxi driver called to apologize about snow delay, but promised to be there in five minutes, so they decided to sit on the porch to wait rather than go back inside. The single porch light shined above them, since the sky was cloudy and without stars.

"Akaashi, you don't mind, do you?" Bokuto asked straight out, since time was short and was getting shorter by the second. "That I like boys?"

Akaashi stared at the sky rather than at him, but sighed, "Why would I? Your life is your own, Bokuto-san."

"That's what Kuroo said, too," he told him, nodding his head. "He was the one who helped me realize, you know?" It was something casual he had slipped into the conversation, and it had changed his life forever. But it made  _sense,_ as did seeing Akaashi again after two years and realizing he could wake up to that face every day for the rest of his life. Even if falling for someone who would never love him back was a huge mistake.

Something passed through Akaashi's eyes, and he frowned. "You and Kuroo-san..." he said hesitantly. His mouth opened, closed, and he seemed to reconsider. But then he saw the open curiosity on Bokuto's face and realized it was too late to backtrack. "You two..."

"Oh,  _god,_ no!" Bokuto laughed, realizing where Akaashi's thoughts had taken him. "He's all 'Kenma this, Kenma that.' He thinks even  _looking_ at someone else is cheating, I'm pretty sure. Hmm, maybe because Kenma always notices the little things. Though I don't think he even  _cares_ if Kuroo looks. Maybe Kuroo would just feel bad if he was the  _only_ one looking, because Kenma isn't the type to look at  _all._ But isn't that funny, Akaashi? I mean, there's nothing  _wrong_ with it, right? Nothing wrong with just..." Did Akaashi notice the way his eyes unconsciously flickered down, taking him in from head to toe? "...just  _looking._ Right?"

Akaashi pressed his knees together and slightly angled away. "I wouldn't really know..."

Maybe his discomfort  _was_ from him looking, and Bokuto would have felt awful if that was the case. But now that he was, he couldn't seem to look away.

They were alone and they were close, and he noticed that Akaashi's eyelashes looked even longer from the side than they did from the front. He noticed the way Akaashi now swept his bangs mostly to one side of his face rather than parting them in the middle. He noticed that Akaashi's lips were thin but very pink, like the kind after someone had been kissed.

But more than anything, he noticed how Akaashi's cheeks had turned bright, bright red from the cold, just like he remembered them, and he wanted to touch so,  _so badly._ The most he'd  _ever_ wanted to touch them.

Akaashi looked over in surprise when he felt fingers ghosting over his skin, his eyes widening somewhat to give expression to his typically blank face. "Bokuto-san?"

Bokuto looked at his own hand for a moment, just blinking down at it, and then realized what he was doing.  _"Whoa!"_ Ripping his hand away, he tucked it onto his side and exclaimed, " _Holy,_ I have no idea how that happened!"

"What were you doing?" Akaashi asked him suspiciously.

He flailed, arms wildly moving around him as he explained. "Well, uh, there was this  _bug,_ see? Yeah! A bug! And it was on your cheek — wait, are there even any bugs around in the winter? Don't they all fly south or something? Well, this one must have gotten lost and stayed behind or something, because..."

He dared a glance at the setter's face and knew he wasn't buying it. His eyes were still a little bigger from surprise, and his lips had rounded to match, and the light bulb above them threw orange light and shadows on his face. And his cheeks were still red.

Bokuto couldn't take it. Turning away in shame, he buried his face in his hands and pressed them against his knees. _"Urgh,_  okay, I  _lied._ There wasn't a bug." He peeked out to see Akaashi waiting patiently, though he looked rightly confused, and groaned, "This isn't going to  _work._ You're just  _too pretty!_ And I wanna touch your cheek. And your hair. And I like the smell of your soap. And either I'm attracted to clothes too and Kuroo missed it, or you look  _really good_ tonight."

Akaashi's surprise melted into an expression of thought, calculation in his eyes, but still he said nothing. Bokuto began to rock, curled into his knees, having said his bit. They made an odd duo sitting on the porch in the middle of the winter night, but they were always an odd duo regardless of the time and the season. But somehow they worked anyway.

Eventually, Akaashi cleared his throat. "So... am I right in assuming that you're..."

Bokuto sniffed and glanced out from behind his knees. "In love with you," he wailed pathetically. It was like one of his moods after failing to land a spike, and the comparison wasn't that far off, if Akaashi was willing to admit he was a volleyball in this scenario.

"I... see," he breathed out, staring at his hands tucked between his knees. He wiggled his fingers, and then he mumbled, "I... probably love you, too."

Bokuto pulled his face out of his knees, loudly sucking back in his running snot. "What?"

"I... thought those things about you today, too..." he admitted hesitantly, still staring at his hands. The fierce look of contemplation hadn't faded from his face yet, as if he was still putting puzzle pieces together. "But, I didn't have a Kuroo-san to make me realize this before... so this..." He fidgeted, tapping the ends of his shoes together. "...is all new to me."

Bokuto shook his head, rubbed his eyes, and repeated, "You're in love with me?" He was still stuck on that part, as if the rest hadn't even reached his ears.

Akaashi sighed. He'd expected that to happen. "Maybe," he replied, still careful with his words.

The change on Bokuto's face was drastic; the sorrowful arch of his frown morphed into a humongous grin, wide enough to show teeth and take up half his face. " _Maybe's_ not a  _no!"_ he pointed out, eagerly leaning in.

"I... yes, it's not a no," Akaashi agreed slowly, glancing away. Then he remembered he was speaking to possibly the most simple-minded boy on the planet, and firmly added, "It's a 'let me think about it.'"

"Sure, sure!" Bokuto readily nodded his head and kept sliding closer and closer. "Take all the time you need! I'll remember to charge my phone  _every_ night and wait for your answer!"

"It'll be long-distance," he tried to point out, but it seemed rather useless to say such a thing to someone as happy-go-lucky as Bokuto. He probably would hardly notice the time passing at all, and there would be  _no_ fear of cheating on either of their ends. The only thing Akaashi was sure he needed to be worried about was three a.m. phone calls from a clingy Bokuto in need of attention.

Bokuto was still grinning, still eagerly waiting for him to say more. But he hadn't touched him yet, despite how close he'd leaned in, maybe because of how ashamed he'd felt for brushing Akaashi's cheek without permission.

Akaashi glanced down at his hand, then at his own, and grabbed Bokuto's. He really  _was_ warm, even in just a T-shirt, while Akaashi's fingers were still frozen even after breathing on them.

"I've never used Bokuto-san the heater before," he explained, in response to Bokuto's quizzical but overly excited look, then quietly asked, "May I?"

The grin he received as an answer was almost blinding. "I'll warm you up  _really_ good, Akaashi!"

They only had a couple of minutes to hold hands, but still, they could both feel each other's warmth on their skin long, long after.


End file.
